Jewish Communal Partnership Sends Trucks Into Haiti

Trucks stocked with emergency supplies and dispatched by Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic crossed the border into Haiti Friday morning, travelling as part of a convoy of disaster relief coordinated by Fundación Sur Futuro, a Haiti-based aid organization, and protected by United Nations security forces.

The dispatch was made possible by grants from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, which identified the Chabad Haiti Relief Fund as a project on the ground with the capability to quickly transfer badly-needed food, water and medicine to earthquake victims in the neighboring capital of Port-au-Prince.

“The shipments made it across the border,” reported Rabbi Shimon Pelman, who is based in S. Domingo and made two trips into Haiti in the days after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. “Now, we are working on procuring bandages, I.V. equipment and antibiotics for hospitals in the disaster zone.”

The majority of the shipments, which were funded by grants from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, were boxes of powdered milk, a badly-needed commodity after a Jan. 12 earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince, killed hundreds of thousands, and left homeless hundreds of thousands more. (Photo: Joe Shalmoni)

Mandia Winston, a Dominican Republic representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, inspected the convoy Friday morning before it headed across the border. (Photo: Joe Shalmoni)

The shipments came as part of a series of distributions undertaken by the Chabad Haiti Relief Fund since the earthquake struck. (Photo: Joe Shalmoni)